Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Exploring Space (1966)

One of the things I love about space art is when factual depiction meets impressionism. Everything illustrated in Exploring Space is basically real but the artistic license makes it feel just a little mythical.

Sometimes a little impressionism lets the viewer see the spirit behind the image.

Exploring space was an amazing adventure. The astronauts were close to the surface of the earth in miles yet at the farthest reaches we have explored.

The NASA Art Program is dedicated to getting artists to witness what we are doing through a different set of eyes. How does it feel to witness these events and know what they mean. Someone had the forethought that maybe we might want to remember this time in more than photographs.

"The NASA Art Program uses the medium of fine art to document America's space program for 'the expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space...for the benefit of all mankind." (National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958.)

Even these drawings done for a forgotten children's book give us something different than a photograph. They give us the taste of a dream.